Chapter 14
Nyx
A trap. They’d found out about Baker, and they’d sent Cain instead.
The realization stabbed into my brain. My breath hitched. My pulse stumbled.
But Cain hadn’t expected me. His expression had contorted—first with shock, then with anger. For a beat there, I was sure he’d send me to my final grave alongside Jerome.
“Move,” he bit out, adding a shake for good measure.
My stomach dropped to my lug-soled boots. I tried to plant my feet, but the parking lot was a slick mess, and Cain didn’t slow, just propelled me in the direction he wanted me to go. I skidded, wrists burning as the spiked silver cuffs dug in.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “Please—just listen. You owe me that much.”
“Talk, then.” He halted, staying behind me like he couldn’t bring himself to look at my face. “Explain why you were meeting with Baker—who wanted to sell me to your sire.”
I winced. Goddess, it looked bad. “He contacted us, not the other way around.”
“Yeah—so?”
“So my father was interested, of course. He’s obsessed with Brien—you know that.”
“Go on.” His breath was warm against my cheek and smelled faintly of beer.
“He asked me to meet with Baker. I didn’t have a choice—I couldn’t turn him down. And I didn’t want to once I knew it was about you. I didn’t expect you to come instead.” I drew a slow inhale. “Was your uncle even a part of this or was it all a trick?”
“Oh, he was a part of this. We intercepted the texts.”
“Was?”
“He fell off a cliff. Sharks got him.”
“Oh.” I absorbed that.
Fitting, really. The man had tried to hand his own nephew over to a rival syndicate; even a human had to know what that would’ve meant for Cain.
“Well,” I said, “my plan was to talk to him, see what he had to say. Then I’d go back to Nazaire and tell him to forget it, that Baker couldn’t be trusted. That it could be a trap.”
“You don’t say?”
Cool fingers curled around my throat. Not tight. Just enough pressure to remind me of other times he’d controlled me like this, how the world would narrow to the heat between us, his body against mine.
For a few seconds, I forgot the bite of the cuffs and the danger I was in. Forgot everything but how that grip had meant something else entirely, something that made my knees weaken and my thoughts scatter.
“I can’t tell if you think I’m a fool,” he said, “or just too blinded by you to notice what’s right in front of me.
You didn’t have to meet Baker. You could’ve contacted me—sent word through that bar in Halifax.
I would’ve shut him down from my end. But you came yourself—with a vampire for backup.
And I’m supposed to believe you’re not here to negotiate. "
I swallowed sickly. “I didn’t have time to contact you—I just found out two nights ago myself. And I didn’t want to bring Jerome, but I didn’t have a choice. My father insisted. I think he’s getting suspicious. In Paris, when you and I, you know—”
“Fucked,” he finished for me in a flat voice.
I dipped my chin, wondering why I hadn’t been able to say it aloud. I suppose I wanted it to be more than fucking.
“Anyway,” I pushed on, “I was afraid my father had found out about us, that we’ve been meeting. He said Jerome was for my protection, but then why send me at all? This isn’t the kind of op he usually sends me on. What if it was a test? So I had to do exactly what he said—no deviations.”
Something shifted deep in his eyes—small, but real enough to make me think I’d reached him.
Behind us, the bar door creaked open. Two humans exited and picked their way through the slush and ice to their vehicle.
“Get moving.” Cain used the hand at my throat to turn me in the direction of a big black truck, guiding forward with his fingers clamped on my nape. “You can tell me the rest on the way.”
The cuffs burrowed deeper. I stifled a moan. The pain didn’t matter. What mattered was making things right with Cain.
“Please. It’s the truth. You have to believe me.”
“Right now, you could tell me your blood is red and I’d doublecheck it.”
I went limp, but he lifted me by the waist and kept moving, my feet dangling above the snowy pavement. The spiky teeth bit harder. This time, I couldn’t hold back a yelp of pain.
“Put me down,” I begged. “I can walk myself.”
“No.” He didn’t set me down until we reached the truck.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Lilith Island.”
“What? No.” I jerked at the cuffs without thinking. White-hot pain shot up my arms, and my knees buckled.
I knew all about Lilith Island. How far out in the Atlantic it sat, a dark speck of rock and forest and syndicate law. Once you crossed its borders, you weren’t just isolated; you were under Maritime Syndicate rule. They ran that place like their own private Sicily.
If Cain took me there, I might never leave. He could lock me away and no one would stop him. And if I did manage to escape, I’d be branded a blood-rat for the rest of my life.
“Please.” Forcing my legs to straighten, I threw a pleading look over my shoulder. “You have to believe me. I wasn’t here to hurt you. You can’t take me to Lilith Island. You’ll ruin—”
“Can’t I?” he interrupted as he turned me to face him, making sure I saw his fuck-you smirk.
Even being moved was agony. I inhaled, a small, hurt sound.
Cain muttered a curse. Reaching behind me, he pressed something on the cuffs and the spikes retracted. I released a breath. My wrists still burned, but it no longer felt like a silver-toothed dog was gnawing them.
The humans got into a small red car and pulled out of the parking lot.
“You don’t have to do this.” The words spilled out, scraped raw by panic. “You can pretend I didn’t show. I’ll tell my father that Baker never showed, that something must’ve happened.”
His lips quirked in a nasty little smile. “Now why would I lie to my own primus for you?”
I swallowed hard.
Why indeed?
Something inside me caved in, piece by crumbling piece, leaving a gaping crater where my heart had been.
Clearly he felt nothing for me. He’d been stringing me along to get what he could. Yeah, he’d liked the sex, but the end game had never been me. It had been my father.
I searched his coldly handsome face, looking for a crack… a flicker. Something that said I’d mattered. That I’d been more than a convenient route to intel about the QCS.
But his expression was unreadable.
And I was drowning in his silence.
“You don’t believe me,” I stated dully. “You think I’m lying.”
“Yes.”
A wild hurt bloomed in my belly. I’d been trying to help the man. The man I’d begun to believe was my mate, even though I hadn’t dared say it aloud. I’d barely let myself think it.
And Cain? He’d leapt straight to the worst possible conclusion.
The weight of it crushed the air from my lungs, tearing up the last of my hope along with it. Anger surged up through the ripped pieces, hot and blinding.
I let my forehead drop to his chest, my voice going bedroom-husky. “Cain…” I breathed, savoring the way his whole body stiffened.
Then I drove my knee toward his groin.
I didn’t expect to escape. He was more powerful even when I wasn’t handcuffed and fighting silver poisoning. But I wanted to see him doubled over in agony, wanted him to feel a fraction of my pain.
The man moved like a ninja—half-demon, half-nightmare—twisting out of reach almost before I was in motion. My knee glanced off the outside of his hip.
At least I’d made him jump back.
I feinted left, darted right. I made it three steps before he grabbed me by the arm. “Try that again and I’ll take it out on that ass of yours.”
What?
Red hazed my vision. I went rigid, breathing hard.
“That’s better. Now, move.” His hand landed on my bottom—harder than necessary—propelling me toward the truck’s passenger side. He had to reach around me to open the door.
His mistake.
As his fingers touched the handle, I reared back, smashing my head into his nose. There was a satisfying crunch, and the air filled with the scent of his blood.
Point to me.
Cain didn’t give me time to enjoy my victory.
In the time between one breath and the next, he spun me around and shoved me up against the truck.
His fingers clamped on my chin in a punishing grip, his body pressing closer, a reminder that I was fighting a man who could literally rip my head off my body.
“That was a mistake,” he said, blood trickling down his face.
My nape tightened at his set mouth and the heightened blue of his eyes. I’d aroused his vampire—and not in a good way. But I was too hurt and angry to back down.
My glare should have turned him into a pile of smoking ash. “That wasn’t a mistake. My mistake was trusting you.”
“You’ve got that backward. My mistake was trusting you. Now get in the fucking truck.”
Caught in the moment, we both forgot that I couldn’t move with him holding my chin, his body blocking my path.
I held his gaze, even though every instinct I had urged me to drop my eyes for a dominant vampire. “No.”
His answering growl tugged at my core. “I’m not giving you a choice.”
To my humiliation, a tingle raced up my spine. My nipples prickled against my tee. No bra because I was pretending to be a man.
“Fuck you,” I spat back.
The tension between us shifted, took on a sexual edge. His nostrils flared, and his gaze dropped to my lips.
“Beg me,” he said in a rasp like the velvety sandpaper of a cat’s tongue. It licked over my skin, made my sex hollow with wanting.
I squeezed my thighs together, hating how easily he could get me revved up, even with my wrists aching and silver seeping into my bloodstream.
His hips rocked against mine. Something about his expression told me his reaction was as involuntary as mine. That like me, he both wanted this, and yet despised himself for it.
I eyed the blood on his face. The rich, salty aroma amped everything up another notch.
My mouth watered, thirsting for a taste. For his taste.
For him, inside me.
His lungs gusted. “You’re going to get me killed, you know?”